Harry Styles plans to invest in a new music venue in Manchester
- 26 Oct 2020
While most music stars are rescheduling tour dates to 2021, Harry Styles is looking farther ahead and making plans to headline his own arena - one he’s putting his money and ideas into.
Styles is one of the investors in a £350 million pound ($456.6 million) new concert venue in Manchester, England, called Co-op Live.
The project, announced Monday, teams him up with Oak View Group on what they hope will be the UK’s largest arena.
"As long as everything’s in order by 2023, hopefully they’ll let me play there. If I haven’t messed it up yet,” Styles said, smiling.
After 10 years touring the globe and playing record-breaking stadiums shows with One Direction, Styles, 26, knows what he’d like from a venue, both as an artist and as an attendee.
"Ultimately, I’m a music fan," he said. "I love going to shows, I love live music.” For performers, he also wants to create great memories.
Already vetoing a suggestion of backstage jacuzzies ("bad idea”), he’s concentrating on making it a standout place to play.
The location was also a big pull for Styles.
He finds the idea of giving a "music city” like Manchester, a brand new, large-scale concert building, "incredibly exciting.”
Styles’ first job was as a paperboy for a Co-op store in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, - delivering newspapers for "a few quid” before school - so working with them now feels like a full-circle moment. (Most of his paper route earnings got spent on candy, he said.)
"It’s a difficult time. Manchester is going to come back. It just will. Like everywhere, it’s about people protecting each other.”
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The pandemic put a stop to his plans for touring to support his "Fine Line” album until December 2020.
Styles remains philosophical about this delay. His dates have been moved to 2021 and he said he's more concerned with keeping his crew and fans safe.
He’s instead been able to use this time to start acting again in a "great project,” the psychological thriller, "Don’t Worry, Darling,” directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Florence Pugh.
It's a switch from the music he said he's always writing and working on.
While he’s shooting, Styles is staying away from the social media monitoring of his hair length and instead dropping a new music video for "Golden,” which was filmed in Italy.
